File comment: Although not listed in Haxby, The Memphis Savings Institution was chartered by the State of Tennessee in January of 1850 with the same privileges as the Nashville Savings Institution.MemphisSavings10_150dpi9.jpg [ 171.22 KiB | Viewed 7426 times ]

File comment: The central vignette shows the Battle of New Orleans. The horseman near center left is probably supposed to be Andrew Jackson.CentralBofTN_Mmephis_05_150dpi8.jpg [ 119.2 KiB | Viewed 7425 times ]

Here is a $20 Memphis TN note from the Bank of West Tennessee (Haxby TN-130-G10b). The back is colored blue, whereas G10a is brown-orange. The note is fairly common, although the blue back seems be less common. The brown-orange backed notes seem to be issued before 1861. I have seen them as early as 1858, although Haxby says it opened in 1855.

According to Haxby, the Bank of West Tennessee was purchased in 1861 by the Memphis Insurance Co. This note is dated Jan 1, 1861 and has the ABNCo monogram below the right A plate letter in addition to the Rawdon, Wright, Hatch, and Edson, N. Orleans and N. Y. imprint. It is also cancelled with two circular cutouts. Haxby indicates that the insurance company continued to issue the same notes as the Bank of West Tennessee. Maybe the insurance company issued the blue-backs whereas the Bank of West Tennessee issued the brown-orange-backs?

What I really like about this note is the beautiful central vignette of the side-wheeler riverboat. Note the name of “West Tennessee” on the side wheel. Was there an actual riverboat by this name? I could not find it in “A Comprehensive List Of American Paddlewheel Riverboats” at

The above website does show the attached vignette that looks extremely close to the vignette on the TN note, except it does not have the “West Tennessee” logo on the side wheel. I suspect that more obsoletes have this vignette?http://www.seorf.ohiou.edu/~xx173/id30.htm

Regarding the Bank of West Tennessee notes, every one of the circulated notes I have seen had the same two hole punch cancellation shown on your notes. I presume there are uncancelled (read: unredeemed) notes out there, but I've never seen one. Have you?

I'm curious whether anyone has any records of how the various banks actually handled the redemption process.

One thing I've noticed is that even within a particular bank the redemption/cancellation process may vary from branch to branch. I believe this is why notes from the Joneboro branch of the Bank of East Tennessee are much more common than notes from the Knoxville branch of the same bank (despite the Knoxville branch being the parent). The Knoxville branch seems to have been more fastidious about getting rid of their redeemed notes. Might be that the Jonesboro branch reissued redeemed notes.

Also, I have two Bank of Knoxville notes that show fire damage on a corner. I've only seen a small handful of other issued notes from that bank, and so have little to go by... which suggests to me that they had a pretty rigid redemption process that may have involved destroying the notes (perhaps by burning them).

Regarding the Bank of West Tennessee notes, Haxby certainly shows uncancelled notes. I personally have not owned any. However, TN is not my specialty. I presume you have Garlands 1983 book on TN notes. He might have more information?

So in this small sample, the ratio of with/without holes is 6/2. This approximately equals the reciprocal of the Haxby catalog value of 25/60 in VF condition.

The other interesting point is that all the $20 notes have orange backs (G10a) whereas mine has the blue back (G10b). This makes 10/1 orange/blue. Yet they have the same catalog value? Small samples issues?

Since there is not much information available on the redemption/cancellation process, I have considered writing a paper on the subject. Bowers has several pages and the individual state obsolete books have snippets here and there. I have since branched into other areas and don’t have the time to research this complicated subjects. I always thought that utilizing the more than 28,000 obsolete high resolution scans at Heritage would be a great way to approach this, especially because they also scan the backs.

Since there is not much information available on the redemption/cancellation process, I have considered writing a paper on the subject. Bowers has several pages and the individual state obsolete books have snippets here and there. I have since branched into other areas and don’t have the time to research this complicated subjects. I always thought that utilizing the more than 28,000 obsolete high resolution scans at Heritage would be a great way to approach this, especially because they also scan the backs.

Yes, I thought of that approach too. I was hoping that there might be some more definitive source available than to try to deduce the policies based on surviving examples. Consider the specific example of the Bank of Knoxville notes I have. The burned corners could have something to do with the redemption cancellation process... or could simply mean that the notes I have were subject to some damage unrelated to the redemption process. Because notes from this bank are rare, it's very hard to draw any meaningful conclusions based on remaining notes. I can speculate, but can't be definitive.

Likewise, the fact that there are some uncancelled notes from Bank of West Tennessee may tell us something about the redemotion process... or not. I've tried running those sorts of research projects before, and the conclusions drawn from them are always questionable. I'm not saying it isn't worth the time to perform research based on surviving examples, just that I had hoped there might be more definitive data to explore (e.g. bank policy statements, newspaper accounts, government documents).

I attempted to probe on that topic some months ago by invoking the open records laws of the state of Tennessee. I was thwarted when I discovered that the open records law only applies to residents of the state (which I have not been for about 30 years now). My father, who is still a resident of the state, made a pass at getting the records but was also unsuccessful.

I contacted David Bowers about this point today. Here is his response:

Q. David Bowers wrote:

Hi!I have never seen any such records. A combination of the info in the Essay-Proof Society, Christie's ABNCo sales, Smythe sales, etc., would probably yield the best info. "Experience" seems to come to the fore here, in lieu of factual information.

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